


Blast Radius

by Daxii



Category: Free!
Genre: Multi, Snippets, apocolypse, some people are dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 17:59:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7371928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daxii/pseuds/Daxii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's an explosion and this is a sample of the day-to-day life of the few survivours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blast Radius

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maybeillride](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybeillride/gifts), [WhyTheHandbasket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyTheHandbasket/gifts), [Meatball](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball/gifts).



> Gifted to the friends who still put up with me even though I've been so distant. Love ya.

“Is everyone all right?” Rin asks, kicking his boots off in the vestibule and bolting the broken automatic door. 

A flashlight turns on by the counter, where Haru is perched, sorting out the old fast food paperwork into a clean, burnable pile for the little stove they’ve got going in lieu of the diner’s ovens, which won’t work anymore. The chickens can shit on the printed pamphlets and foil envelopes. 

“They’re all sleeping,” Haru whispers, shining the torch down the left side of the room, where the other survivours in their clan have made beds out of the booths. 

“There needs to be more than one person on lookout!” Rin hisses. “We’ve been through this! If we get raided - ”

“Raided by who?” Haru rolls his eyes. “We haven’t seen a single person who wasn’t already a skeleton in two months.”

Rin gives him a shove, squeezing onto the counter between Haru and the forsaken cash register. “Just be vigilant. I feel like you’re the only one here who has any idea what they’re doing.”

“We’re all bloody doomed then.”

They sit silently, occasionally checking the clock on the wall they’re not sure is that accurate any more, but when it gets to midnight Rin gives Sousuke and Momotarou a kick awake, and it’s finally their turn to get some sleep. 

When they first came across the diner, no one having known each other for more than a week and somewhere between hypothermia and starvation, pulling apart the booths on the right and cobbing them together with the ones on the left to make beds had seemed like a brilliant idea, especially with Haru raiding the pantry and flame grilling anything still edible to keep them going. 

But now, with half a year of brotherly bonding under their belts (and as many showers as fresh dinners), Haru faces the difficult choice between putting his face towards the moldy cushion, or Rin’s rotting pits. Hopefully the pits won’t give him lung cancer like the mold might. 

“Can’t you wait?!” Rin suddenly hisses, right in Haru’s ear. 

He jerks awake and makes a grumble, squinting at Rin in the darkness, but Rin’s glaring at their headboard, and then Haru hears it too. 

“Maybe we should turn the bathrooms into sex pits?” Haru suggests. 

“Give those two the one with the dead rats,” Rin grunts. 

There’s a giggle from the next bed. “Sorry,” Nagisa whispers. Rei says nothing, but he won’t look anyone in the eye the next day. 

The winter dawn is cold, making getting back to sleep after his rude awakening difficult for Rin. He scoots a little closer to Haru, who just looks at him. 

“Shut the fuck up,” he grunts. Haru smirks. 

Keeping chickens in the walk-in fridge seemed like a good idea at the time. They weren’t going to be eaten by anything or stolen from outside, and it’s practically sound proof (maybe this should be the sex pit?) buuut they make one hell of a mess. As Haru’s the only the potentially mutant beats don’t want to peck to death, he gets the privilege of cleaning up their crap on a daily basis. The eggs they’re laying don’t seem to be too toxic, and the first batch they hatched all came out with just one head, so that’s a good sign. But my god could he do with something other than egg to go with his rice. Mackerel, perhaps. He misses mackerel. 

Sousuke sometimes helps with the cooking, usually taking over stoking the fire they have going in the bottom of the industrial oven. It heats up the hobs above it and actually works pretty well with frying a few thin omlets. They have a ration of potatoes that would once have been mass produced fries. Now though, they’re using old crates filled with soil to get some indoor growing done. 

No one knows where Rin keeps fetching all this rice from. 

It’s the beginning of spring, still cold and frosty but at least they won’t die on the spot from taking a step outside, when something in their routine changes. Kisumi dashes in, out of breath, bolting the door and running around blacking out the large windows with the big black bin bags. 

“What’s happening?” Rin sits up. He’s only had half an hour of nap, snuggled next to Haru, yet he’s bounced up like he’s had a good eight hours. Haru, on the other hand, is too tired to care if their home is burning to the ground. 

“Someone was following me. Big chap. I don’t know if he - ”

“Followed?” Sousuke comes out from the kitchen, where he, Momo and Ai have been hammering away building sofas (and hey, they’re guaranteed to have a matching dining set). “Please don’t say you were followed.”

There’s such worry in the big man’s face that resonates through their entire group. Kisumi’s mid-morning piss could literally have got them killed. 

“I’m really sorry,” Kisumi whispers. He tries to lean his head on Sou’s shoulder, they’ve had something going on, and the rejection that follows makes Haru wince and Rin step forward. 

“It’s just one guy, right? There’s eight of us...”

“As if we’re in a position to fight, Rin?! Ai’s the littlest and even he’s skin and bone. I’ve probably lost a whole Momo in weight since all this shit started!”

Someone’s probably going to continue shouting but there’s a rapping of knuckles on glass and the room is suddenly silent. 

“Huh... hello?” a voice calls. 

No one moves. There’s such fear Haru can taste it. He’s never been good in groups, and this is just... he can’t handle it. They’ve been followed, found, and there’s all this assumption that this is it. They’ve done so well for themselves (though no one’s really sure what for, just to not die, he supposes). But what if...

“Maybe he just needs help,” he says, just loud enough to cut through the quiet. 

“Don’t pretend we can afford to feed another mouth,” Sousuke scoffs. 

Whatever happens, this guy know they’re here. 

“I should go out... deal with whatever this is. Maybe we can give him some chickens and a potato plant and he’ll leave us alone...” Kisumi mumbles. 

“He’ll have friends, Kisi,” Rin sighs.

“Please! Please I know you’re in there!” the voice calls again. “I’m not a threat. My sister... she’s only five...!”

“We have no medical supplies!” Sousuke shouts. 

Haru feels a hand slide into his, and when he squeezes it sees Rin smile. It touches a nerve, he knows, and he can see him trying his hardest not to throw the doors open and bustle the little girl in.

And then he sees him give up. He sees himself, as if in third person, take a lunge forward and throw himself at Sousuke to pin him to the floor. No one else will try and challenge Rin. 

The guy almost stumbles in shock when he sees Rin in the doorway. Haru takes his side. Two’s better than one. He’s big, burly. He’s what Sousuke would look like with a proper diet and a month in the gym. 

“Thank you! Oh, oh... please... can you help? She’s so sick... we were staying in our home but... bandits... and it’s so cold.”

“We don’t have much,” Rin breathes. The relief is clear. Maybe they’re not about to die. “But there’s shelter and a bit of food. What do you have?”

“Just the camping equipment I could grab, and old Pearl... family cat. She’s good for mice, I guess. I... can’t bring everything at once.” 

Haru knows what Rin’s going to say and there’s nothing he can do about it, just watch his friend, the one he’s become closest too out of all this riff raff, stroll away to either help or be killed and eaten by this bloke. 

He can’t look at Sousuke when he comes back in and shuts the door. Kisumi sits with him while they wait, glad that Sou has taken the others into the back to continue building. The hammering has become significantly louder as he vents his frustration. 

Makoto, they’re new clan member, has not one, but two younger siblings. He blows a kiss to an obviously small grave a quarter mile from where he’s hidden the tent in the trees. The girl has her eyes closed, so tiny cradled in just one arm, and Makoto whispers to her as they walk back to the diner. 

“Thank you,” Makoto says again. “She’s all I have now. Our parents, our brother...”

“I know,” is all Rin can say. “My sister... It was only the first day. She was in such a bad way after the blast. I met Haru when I was getting some water... and when we got back, we only had one choice.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“So am I.”

They set Ran down in the bed closest to the kitchen, where she’ll get the most warmth from the stove. Sousuke offers a gesture of some scrabbled eggs. Keeping the peace, and all that. It’s obvious he’s not happy, but he’s got Kisumi cuddled up on the new couch that evening. 

Keeping Pearl out of the fridge is easier than expected. Turns out she’s scared of chickens.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey I'm not dead.   
> Thank you, if you still follow me, for the support I still get. I love still getting kudos and comments even though I've been awol for about 6 months.   
> It's a bit of a story. Boyfriend + illness + getting just about done with tumblr bullshit, but meh.   
> I want to keep writing. I want to finish Starpool and all the others, because I've never achieved something I'm so proud of as that.   
> So..... maybe I'll become more active again.


End file.
